SENSORY ECOLOGY RESEARCH

Principle Investigator:

Jennifer L. DeBose
Research Specialist
Flower Garden Banks NMS
jenndebose@yahoo.com

Research Focus:

Role of chemosensory cues in the aggregation behavior of pelagic animals, specifically squid and Carangid jacks.

Research Summary:

The Flower Garden Banks offer a special reef structure, unlike most other accessible reefs, for conducting research studies. They are relatively solitary, shallow seamounts at which multiple pelagic species aggregate throughout the year. During earlier dive expeditions to the Flower Garden Banks, Jenn became interested in what sensory cues pelagic animals use to locate these relatively isolated reefs, especially when these animals form transient aggregations over the reefs. For example, she noticed pelagic jacks frequenting the reefs during certain time periods and a small, elusive squid which formed aggregations coinciding with the coral spawning event. With these phenomena in mind, she began her research on the sensory ecology of marine fish and squid.

Jenn’s field work consists of documenting fish and squid abundance in relation to a specific environmental chemical, dimethylsulfoniopropionate (DMSP). DMSP is a chemical produced by algae and is released in the water when algal cells are opened to the environment, which occurs through zooplankton feeding upon algae or other forms of algal death. When this release of DMSP occurs, Jenn has found that plankton consumers and predators ‘listen’ and move into the area. In fact, we also smell dimethylsulfide (DMS), a breakdown product of DMSP. An example is that subtle ‘sea aroma’ while walking on the beach, which is reminiscent of sargassum mats, and more strongly, of decaying fish.

Jenn’s field research at the Flower Garden Banks is fairly straightforward. She and her assistants jump in and collect seawater for later analysis and count fish and squid in the area. She has conducted comparative studies at sites in the southern Caribbean, which include Bonaire and Curacao, Netherlands Antilles. Research at comparative sites was necessary due to the difficulty of conducting experiments under the conditions inherent to the FGBNMS reefs. She found similar phenomena at these other reefs as well – fishes aggregate to a temporal surge in DMSP.

Aside from fieldwork, Jenn has also conducted olfactory sensitivity experiments with multiple jack and other fish species at the NOAA/Northwest Fisheries Science Center in Seattle, Washington.

These studies were an integral piece of Jenn’s dissertation research which she completed at the University of California – Davis, under Dr. Gabrielle Nevitt. She is now the Research Specialist at the Flower Garden Banks NMS, where she focuses on monitoring the reef communities of the sanctuary.

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